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🛡️ CVE-2023-53256 — kernel

🟡 CVSS 5.5 — Medium ✅ No Known Exploit NVD
5.5
CVSS Score
0 Low4 Medium7 High9 Critical10

Description

firmware: arm_ffa: Fix FFA device names for logical partitions

In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:

firmware: arm_ffa: Fix FFA device names for logical partitions

Each physical partition can provide multiple services each with UUID.

Each such service can be presented as logical partition with a unique

combination of VM ID and UUID. The number of distinct UUID in a system

will be less than or equal to the number of logical partitions.

However, currently it fails to register more than one logical partition

or service within a physical partition as the device name contains only

VM ID while both VM ID and UUID are maintained in the partition information.

The kernel complains with the below message:

| sysfs: cannot create duplicate filename '/devices/arm-ffa-8001'

| CPU: 1 PID: 1 Comm: swapper/0 Not tainted 6.3.0-rc7 #8

| Hardware name: FVP Base RevC (DT)

| Call trace:

| dump_backtrace+0xf8/0x118

| show_stack+0x18/0x24

| dump_stack_lvl+0x50/0x68

| dump_stack+0x18/0x24

| sysfs_create_dir_ns+0xe0/0x13c

| kobject_add_internal+0x220/0x3d4

| kobject_add+0x94/0x100

| device_add+0x144/0x5d8

| device_register+0x20/0x30

| ffa_device_register+0x88/0xd8

| ffa_setup_partitions+0x108/0x1b8

| ffa_init+0x2ec/0x3a4

| do_one_initcall+0xcc/0x240

| do_initcall_level+0x8c/0xac

| do_initcalls+0x54/0x94

| do_basic_setup+0x1c/0x28

| kernel_init_freeable+0x100/0x16c

| kernel_init+0x20/0x1a0

| ret_from_fork+0x10/0x20

| kobject_add_internal failed for arm-ffa-8001 with -EEXIST, don't try to

| register things with the same name in the same directory.

| arm_ffa arm-ffa: unable to register device arm-ffa-8001 err=-17

| ARM FF-A: ffa_setup_partitions: failed to register partition ID 0x8001

By virtue of being random enough to avoid collisions when generated in a

distributed system, there is no way to compress UUID keys to the number

of bits required to identify each. We can eliminate '-' in the name but

it is not worth eliminating 4 bytes and add unnecessary logic for doing

that. Also v1.0 doesn't provide the UUID of the partitions which makes

it hard to use the same for the device name.

So to keep it simple, let us alloc an ID using ida_alloc() and append the

same to "arm-ffa" to make up a unique device name. Also stash the id value

in ffa_dev to help freeing the ID later when the device is destroyed.

How this vulnerability can be exploited

This issue can be reached with local access to the system, attack complexity is low, an attacker needs low-level privileges on the target. No user interaction is required. The scope is unchanged, so the impact stays within the vulnerable component. Rated impact: confidentiality high, integrity none, availability none.

CVSS metrics in full

The score comes from this vector: CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N

  • Attack vector: Local — a local account, shell or session on the host is needed.
  • Attack complexity: Low — the attack works reliably, with no preparation.
  • Privileges required: Low — an ordinary user account is enough.
  • User interaction: None — nobody has to be tricked into anything.
  • Scope: Unchanged — the damage stays inside the vulnerable component.
  • Confidentiality impact: High — total loss, or loss the attacker controls.
  • Integrity impact: None.
  • Availability impact: None.

Affected software

CVE-2023-53256 is recorded against 2 packages.

  • kernel (from 6.2.0 up to 6.3.5)
  • linux-kernel

Timeline and source

Published on 15 September 2025 and last revised on 12 August 2026. No public exploit is currently recorded for this entry. A vendor advisory or fix has been published. Record sourced from NVD.

References

git.kernel.org (Web)
git.kernel.org (Web)
git.kernel.org (Web)
git.kernel.org (Web)
github.com (Advisory)
nvd.nist.gov (Advisory)
git.kernel.org (Package)

Other advisories for this package

kernel has other advisories on record. If you are patching this one, these are worth checking on the same host:

CVE-2023-53256 on other distributions

Each distribution ships its own build and its own fixed version. Pick the one you run:

Details

Severity Medium
CVSS Score 5.5
CVSS Vector CVSS:3.1/AV:L/AC:L/PR:L/UI:N/S:U/C:H/I:N/A:N
CWE N/A
Public Exploit ✅ No
Source NVD
Published 2025-09-15
Updated 2026-08-20
Modified 2026-08-12

Affected Packages

Software From version Fixed in
kernel 6.2.0 6.3.5
linux-kernel — —

Similar Threats

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